Three Years Post-Dobbs, Abortion Providers Experience High Levels of Violence & Disruption

April 23, 2025

NATIONAL—Today, the National Abortion Federation (NAF) released its Violence & Disruption report with data from 2023 and 2024. The report shows there has been sustained and consistent harassment and violence against abortion providers, even as clinics closed and abortion became harder to access in some regions.

This year’s interactive report compares the violence and disruption that NAF members reported in 2023 & 2024 to the total data NAF has tracked since 1977. The report features “heat maps” that demonstrate the states where providers reported experiencing the highest levels of obstruction, protesters, threats, and trespassing. Finally, the report includes an audio storyteller map where viewers can click through and hear directly from providers at clinics across the country about their experiences with violence and disruption.

Continued: https://prochoice.org/three-years-post-dobbs-abortion-providers-experience-high-levels-of-violence-disruption/

25 MILLION WOMEN NOW LIVE IN STATES WITH ABORTION BANS OR TIGHTER RESTRICTIONS AFTER FALL OF ROE

Sep 18, 2023

More than one year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rescinded a five-decade-old right to abortion, prompting a seismic shift in debates about politics, values, freedom, and fairness.

Twenty-five million women of childbearing age now live in states where the law makes abortions harder to get than they were before the ruling.

Continued: https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/newswire/25-million-women-now-live-states-abortion-bans-tighter-restrictions-fall-roe/

A year after Tennessee’s abortion ban, 14,000 people have faced limited choices, devastating consequences

Organizations nationwide pull together to offer options for unwanted pregnancies

by Sono Motoyama
August 24, 2023

In the year since Tennessee’s abortion ban went into effect on Aug. 25, 2022, about 14,000 pregnant people in the state have been forced to find other solutions for their unwanted pregnancies.

Some have driven hours to out-of-state clinics for abortions. Others have ordered and taken FDA-approved pills, with possible risk of prosecution. Still others, unable to obtain an abortion in Tennessee, have carried their pregnancies to term. Some have even turned to unsafe and ineffective methods, such as taking herbs, large amounts of alcohol or medications unintended for pregnancy termination.

Continued: https://mlk50.com/2023/08/24/a-year-after-tennessees-abortion-ban-14000-people-have-faced-limited-choices-devastating-consequences/

How one quiet Illinois college town became the symbol of abortion rights in America

Chris Kenning, USA TODAY
Jun. 4, 2023

CARBONDALE, Ill. – The 26-year-old had never heard of the distant southern Illinois town, but it had become the closest option.

So she cobbled together money. Found child care. Asked her brother for a ride. And set off early one morning to drive north across state lines to 22,000-person Carbondale.

Continued: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/investigations/2023/06/04/carbondale-illinois-abortion-clinics/70180040007/

Inside the Post-Roe Scramble to Count Abortions

The end of Roe reshaped abortion access across the U.S. What does it take to track those changes?

By Rebecca Grant
March 22, 2023

On May 2, 2022 at 8:32 p.m., when Politico published a leaked draft of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Jennifer Pepper was standing on Main Street in Disney World. Pepper is president and CEO of the Choices Center for Reproductive Health, a reproductive health clinic in Memphis, Tennessee, that began providing abortion care in 1974. She had traveled to Orlando to give a presentation at a conference and visited Disney World that evening to watch the fireworks. The air was warm and humid, the sun had just set, and Pepper was staring at Cinderella’s Castle when her phone erupted with messages and alerts.

“I remember kneeling down and feeling like I’d been gut punched,” Pepper said. “We knew it was going to happen, but seeing those words in black and white shattered any little bit of hope that maybe we had gotten it wrong.”

Continued: https://undark.org/2023/03/22/inside-the-post-roe-scramble-to-count-abortions/

50 years after Roe v. Wade, many abortion providers are changing how they do business

January 22, 2023
Sarah McCammon
4-Minute Listen with Transcript

The 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision would have been a day of celebration for many abortion-rights supporters. But this milestone anniversary, on January 22, falls just short of seven months after another landmark abortion decision: the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization ruling issued June 24 that overturned Roe.

After Dobbs, many clinics in red states where restrictive abortion laws have been enacted have been forced to close their doors and move, or stay open and dramatically shift the services they're providing.

Continued: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/22/1150574240/50-years-roe-v-wade-dobbs-abortion-providers-reinvent

America’s abortion access divide is reshaping blue-state border towns

New or expanded health care clinics are starting to bring more people into small towns after the fall of Roe v. Wade.

By SHIA KAPOS
01/11/2023

A Tennessee-based health care provider announced plans in May — just one week after POLITICO published the draft Supreme Court opinion that foreshadowed the end of federal abortion protections — to open a clinic in Carbondale, Ill.

The provider, Choices, is seeing a steady stream of abortion patients from Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and Texas since it set up space in a shuttered dermatology office last fall, its only location outside Memphis.

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/2023/01/11/abortion-access-blue-state-border-towns-00077367

Pressure and Stress Intensify for Abortion Providers Post-Roe

NOVEMBER 29, 2022
Susan Buttenwieser

Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in late June, providers of abortion care have been dealing with emotional devastation, managing severe staff burnout, the possibility of facing criminal charges, and increased harassment from protestors.

Some providers also contended with the prospect of losing their jobs when abortion became illegal in their state, at times within hours of the decision, forcing their clinics to close down. By October, 66 clinics across 15 states had been forced to stop offering abortion care or had closed down entirely. Before the June 24 Dobbs decision, those 15 states had 79 clinics that provided abortion care; by October 2, that number had dropped to 13, all located in one state, Georgia.

Continued: https://womensmediacenter.com/news-features/pressure-and-stress-intensify-for-abortion-providers-post-roe

The Abortion Clinics Staying Open in Hostile States

By Andrea González-Ramírez
AUG. 19, 2022

Earlier this year, Katie Quinonez, the executive director of Women’s Health Center of West Virginia, had her eyes on a vacant lot next door. Purchasing the lot would allow the state’s only abortion clinic, located in the city of Charleston, to expand. Quinonez says the owner of the lot rejected the clinic’s offer, however, because the local West Virginians for Life chapter had been renting it, and the owner wanted to give the anti-abortion group until the end of the year to raise enough money to buy the property.

It was a frustrating reminder of the logistical challenges the clinic would face if it were ever to close and later attempt to reopen. The overturn of Roe v. Wade opened the door to an imminent ban on abortion in the Mountain State, making it crucial for Quinonez to plan the clinic’s next act.

Continued: https://www.thecut.com/2022/08/the-abortion-clinics-staying-open-in-ban-states.html

Abortion providers are trying to open new clinics as close as possible to states with bans

Providers hope the new clinics can help serve the surge of patients now expected to travel for abortions.

Shefali Luthra, Health Reporter
July 11, 2022

Whole Woman’s Health announced plans to close its four Texas abortion clinics and open one in neighboring New Mexico.

CHOICES, based in Memphis, Tennessee, is opening a clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, the closest state expected to protect abortion rights.

https://19thnews.org/2022/07/abortion-providers-new-clinics-borders-states-bans/